


The Last Chance Streetcar

by gaialux



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Pre-Femslash, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 16:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2236110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/pseuds/gaialux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Ruby is sent back to Hell, Lilith and Lucifer offer her another chance. On the way out she meets up with someone else who's hanging out down below. Ruby doesn't mean to be bad. Honestly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Chance Streetcar

**Author's Note:**

> Background Sam/Ruby. Implied Lilith/Ruby.

you’re the sweet crusader  
and you’re on your way  
you’re the last great innocent  
and that’s why i love you.  
\-- Mary Jane by Alanis Morissette.

 

Ruby still didn’t know exactly where Lilith had sent her. Knew only that it wasn’t Hell; at least not the Hell she recognised. The one she knew was dark and blood-stained, with body parts dripping from walls and people screaming and screaming. At least until they became demons and made others scream instead. Which was exactly what was going to happen to Dean Winchester when she found him, because revenge -- despite what Confucius might have said -- was definitely a dish best served sizzling and painful.

Where Lilith had sent her was cold. Freezing in fact. She’d heard about the rumours, about how Lucifer burned ice cold, and the panic hit her with the walls growing suffocating. Logically, she knew Lucifer wasn’t supposed to be here. He was locked away, trapped for an eternity. At least that’s how the rumours always ended, but they were just that -- rumours. Nobody had ever made them solid.

“Ruby.”

She turned, breath still caught in her throat. A woman stepped from the shadows, one she didn’t recognise. “Who are you?”

The woman came closer, until Ruby could see that her face was destroyed was years upon years down here. “Sweetheart, you’ve spent too long on the surface. You don’t need to breathe.”

“Who are you?” Ruby repeated.

The woman smiled. “My name is Sabine. I know Lilith, just like you.”

“Lilith sent me here.” It was the last thing Ruby remembered, and being pulled from a host was so much more painful than death itself. Dean had gotten off lucky. At least until he woke up here.

Sabine circled Ruby, the right side of her face coming into view. The skin was hanging in threads, muscle visible underneath. Maybe Ruby had spent too long on Earth; it managed to almost repulse her.

“Did Lilith clue you into her master plan?” Sabine asked.

“Capture Dean Winchester’s soul?” Ruby smiled, followed Sabine with her eyes. “I think you’re a bit slow off the mark.”

Sabine laughed and stopped moving. For a long while neither of them did anything, and it hit Ruby that there had to be something more than Dean on Sabine’s mind. Lilith had screwed her over and now Ruby had to play along.

“We’re going to free Lucifer,” Sabine said before Ruby could get a word in.

“We?” Damn it, Ruby. Shut up.

“You.” Sabine takes a step forward. “Me.” Another. “Lilith. Do you know what Lucifer will give us when we free him?” Again, she didn’t wait for a response. “Everything. We could rule the world.”

Ruby stepped away from her, still looking for an escape. So she didn’t have to breathe -- it didn’t stop the walls from closing in around her and the cold perforating through her entire body. She would freeze to death, too used to the blazing inferno from the centre of Hell and the indoor venues on Earth. There was nothing, no door or tunnel. How had Sabine gotten in? How had Ruby been dropped here?

“Why are you telling me this?” She turned back to Sabine. “Why can’t you and Lilith just do it?”

Sabine closed the space between them again, her dark eyes flashing a momentary red. Ruby almost missed it, but it was there. Like the blood-soaked walls of Hell. “I’d like to ask her the same thing.”

Sabine’s hand shot out and clenched around Ruby’s throat so fast Ruby didn’t even have time to blink. Her own hand came up, nails digging into Sabine’s skin. Sabine didn’t let up.

“Or maybe you do need to breathe,” Sabine said. “Is there a cap for how long you can stay topside? I haven’t been in over two hundred years.”

The hand clenched tighter, lifting Ruby and shoving her against the stone. It was like ice, seeping through Ruby’s clothes and into her skin, moving to her heart. And she did have a heart. She still knew what it was like to be human, to feel.

It was a risk -- a fruitless, pointless risk -- but Ruby reached down and found it. The leather had never felt better in her hand and she had no idea why it was there when this wasn’t even the same body. But it was in her grasp, and that’s all that mattered. Ruby pulled the knife from the waistband of her jeans and slammed it into Sabine’s chest.

Sabine’s hand gripped tighter around Ruby’s neck, and all that went through Ruby’s mind was a litany of oh shit, oh shit, oh shit because she hadn’t used the knife down here before and things were different. How could she be so stupid and forget that? Then the grip loosened, Sabine shooting sparks of red and yellow behind her eyes before finally letting go and slumping forward. Ruby yanked out the knife.

“Wow.”

Ruby whirled around, knife still in hand. If there was another demon sent, she was ready. She could fight her way if she had to; she’d done it before, sans weapon. When she caught sight of the figure in front of her, the knife dropped. This one she did recognise. Lilith.

“I knew you’d do it.” Lilith kept walking toward Ruby and Ruby was too stunned to move. Her mind said to do something. To fight or kill because it was Lilith who had tried to kill her, Lilith who had sent her away. “You’d always do anything for me.”

“You--” Ruby backed herself up against the wall again, finding it easier this time to ignore the cold. She couldn’t look away from Lilith. “You put me here. You sent me away. What did I--?”

“Shh.” Lilith crossed the space between them and pressed a finger to Ruby’s lips. It wasn’t at all cold like the room, instead it almost burnt. “You did nothing, I just needed you here for a moment. I know you only killed her for me.” Lilith toes the body of Sabine still on the ground. “I know you’ll help me. We don’t need her.”

“What--” Her mind was still reeling, trying to catch up to all of this. It was real? The truth? “Lucifer…”

“Yeah.” Lilith giggles. “You didn’t think humans get all the fun, did you? Somebody’s protecting us. Or at least he’d like to, and we’re going to make that happen again. What do you say?”

The remainder of the distance between them was closed as Lilith replaces her finger with her lips, a feather-light kiss crossing Ruby’s mouth. “Yes,” Ruby said and she wasn’t sure why.

::

The mouth of Hell roared in Ruby’s ears. Spirits swirled, awaiting their appointed torture. She knew Dean would be amongst them and she wanted to know, so badly, who's rack he would end up on. She remembered her own vividly, all done under the hands of Alastair. At least to begin with.

“You will have two demon guards.” Lilith’s voice was in her ears even if her body was missing. “You kill them to show Sam about trust. I’ll follow you through in a few days and let you know what to do next.”

With that, Lilith’s presence disappeared and the roaring picked up again, louder than anything could ever be on Earth. The screams and cries of souls trapped forever. They asked for this, Ruby thought. Just like I did.

The souls pushed at her, trying to force her back down. Half of her still tried to find Dean, but she she’d have no idea what to do if that happened. She wasn’t going to stay and watch. She was going to find his brother and prove to Lilith that she could do this, that she was loyal.

There was one scream, though, that drew her toward it. A new soul, she could tell immediately. It wasn’t completely black, it was almost translucent. For a moment she thought it was Dean and she reached out, ready to skin him alive with her own hands. Only it wasn’t Dean. It was a woman. One she had seen with Sam and Dean in the past. Ruby’s hand connected with the body and pulled.

::

Sam wanted a dead body, so Ruby went for a coma patient. Jane Doe. She considered taking that up as a name -- or at least the Jane part -- but ultimately decided she would always be Ruby. Years upon years upon years of this name and it did fit her. Mostly.

Bela got her old body back. Apparently there was a loophole that let it happen if you’d been out of your it less than a year. Ruby missed her own, but this one was almost fitting and reminded her of who she’d once been. Who she still was, to some extent. Only she knew the human-side of her needed to be fast fleeting. Everything was centered on getting Sam Winchester, freeing Lucifer, and winning back Lilith’s love and respect.

Only Lilith hadn’t brought her the plan yet. Even Bela had only learnt half truths after they met up again, which was surprisingly easy given everything. A niggling thought in the back of Ruby’s mind told her it had to be another part of Lilith’s plan, but she didn’t let Sam see Bela. All Bela knew was that revenge using Sam Winchester was in the very near future.

“You can leave,” Ruby said a few weeks later. “Revenge isn’t for everyone.”

“A chance to get back at the Winchesters?” Bela smirked. “You really think I would give that up? Besides, what happens if I leave? Do I go back there?” The smirk faltered and eventually fell, Bela averting her eyes.

“I don’t know,” Ruby admitted. If it was Lilith’s plan, then Lilith was the one calling all of the shots. “You might be able to hide.” I did. At least for a little while. If only she hadn’t tried to help Dean or Sam. But she was getting back at them now, they would pay.

“I--” Bela crossed their hotel room -- she had insisted on the best and money meant nothing to Ruby -- and gripped onto the back of the couch. “I’m not a demon. Not exactly. What does that--?”

“I don’t know,” Ruby said again.

There was an iota of things she didn’t know about this situation. Somehow Bela was almost like a spirit, nothing ruined or tarnished in her yet. How it was possible, Ruby didn’t know. Bela may be the first hell-bound in all of eternity to get out before demon status set in. Ruby just wished Lilith would hurry up and get here to tell her what to do next. She had tracked Sam, fucked Sam, and was now avoiding Sam because she didn’t want to slip.

“Tell me again what Lilith told you.”

Ruby walked over to Bela, dropping to another of the chairs. “All I’ve been told is I have to find Sam.”

Bela let up on her death-grip on the chair, sitting on it instead. A hand moved through her hair and Ruby watched her, unsure what to say next. A large part of her wanted to tell her the whole story -- or at least the chapter she actually knew -- but Lilith would find out. That’s what Lilith did, and twisted it all to suit her needs. Instead she let the silence stretch.

“I miss my cat,” Bela said.

Ruby was jolted out of her thoughs. “What?”

“I had a cat. Before…” Bela trailed off and her hand stopped moving, dropping down with a soft thump to the table.

“Like...a cat?” Ruby was sure there was something more to this than just a cat.

“Um, yeah. Like meow?”

“Like meow,” Ruby mused before cracking up into laughter. “We’re talking about Lilith and you bring up a cat?”

Bela looked hurt for a moment, but then her eyes shone. Her human eyes. It was as though she had never even set foot in Hell and Ruby did envy her for that. Most of the time. Right now she was just happy to let herself laugh and feel the laughter. It was so strange after all these years of nothing but pain.

“Yes, Ruby. A cat.” Bela said as her own laughter ebbed away. “A Siamese cat, actually. His name is David. After David Manners. It seemed fitting.”

“As in Dracula?”

“Where did you think Bela came from?”

Ruby shook her head in disbelief, dark tendrils of hair flying. That has still taken some getting used to after being blonde for over a year, but brown was her natural hair colour. She caught a piece of hair in her fingers, twisting it around. “Where is David?”

Bela sighed. “Queens last time I saw him. I have a maid who would see to him while I was away, but I’ve been gone…” Ruby looked up to see Bela’s forehead crease. “How long have I been gone?”

“Two months.”

“That’s it?”

Ruby nodded. She knew it felt longer in Hell -- did for everyone, even the early spirits who hadn’t faced torture. Deep down, Ruby knew it was only a matter of time before Bela went back to pay her end of the deal.

“I’m sure he’s okay,” Ruby said, flimsy. “Cats are adaptive.”

“Of course.” Bela was smiling again. “He is my cat after all.”

::

It was a dark and stormy night when Lilith came to her. She made sure Ruby knew about the weather, too, grinning and laughing about the cliche and how demons never did demon things anymore.

“Soon that won’t be the case,” she said. “Soon Lucifer will rule and the dark and stormy will be everywhere.”

Ruby looked around the room. “Where’s Bela?”

“Gone,” Lilith said curtly.

“What?” Ruby’s eyes flew back to Lilith. All she could picture was Hell and Bela being trapped there again. Ruby knew she shouldn’t care and doesn’t. Not really. She was just going to use Bela--

“Don’t worry, it’s only temporary.” The strangest feeling of relief washed through Ruby. Lilith kept speaking. “You do know I let her out to help you, don’t you?”

She had figured as much, but for some reason it left her with a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“It was her or Dean and I don’t like to give back what’s mine.” Lilith’s fingers traced over Ruby’s arm, twirling in light circles and moving higher. “Sam does have some trust in Bela and we’ll utilise her if we need to.”

“If we need to?”

Lilith kept smiling. The body she had stolen this time looked very similar to Ruby’s last, only instead of the jeans and leather jacket Lilith had gone with a soft, white dress. It was always white with her. Purity. And she wanted a world of dark and stormy. “Of course. Based on what I’ve seen, you’ve been doing fine on your own.”

“What have you seen?” She regretted asking as soon as the words were out of her mouth. The thought of Lilith seeing everything managed to make her feel sick.

Lilith shifted closer on the bed, her free hand coming to rest on Ruby’s denim-clad thigh. “It’s fine,” Lilith said. “Anything to make him go along with it.”

“What are we making him go along with?”

“You know as well as I do about the path Azazel paved.” Lilith was so close to her that Ruby could hardly see anything else. Just Lilith’s face, covered lightly by the face of her host body. “Blood, Ruby.” Lilith leaned across and grazed her teeth against Ruby’s neck. “Yours.”

::

“I want to know what’s going on.” Bela was shaking when she came back and wouldn’t stop pacing the hotel room. Any attempts Ruby made to calm her down were to no avail and she eventually gave up trying, preferring instead to sit on the bed and pick at the fuzzy woolen blanket, waiting to see what Bela would do next. “Please, Ruby. I think I deserve to know.”

Ruby looked up and chewed on her bottom lip. “Yes. You do.”

“So?” Bela’s eyes widened, waiting.

“I’ve already told you most of it.” No, she really hadn’t. She stared harder at Bela, trying to decide if she should be told. Lilith hadn’t said it was a secret exactly. Bela was still waiting. “Lilith is after Sam.”

“I did figure that much.”

That was the easy part, the one she had suspected Bela would accept. Her smile fell. “Bela. Sam has demon blood.”

“Common knowledge.” Shock must have shown across Ruby’s face, because Bela kept talking. “Ruby, dear. I may not be a hunter, but I do know my way around the game. Most of us have heard the rumours, a few of us believe them.”

“And his powers?”

“Lesser known, but I am aware of more than most.”

Two months in Hell, not even a hunter, and Bela seemed to know more than most demons. Ruby couldn’t do anything more than shake her head. It felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders now she had someone other than Lilith she didn’t have to keep secrets from. It had almost broken her when she had to lie and lie and lie to Sam, because Lilith didn’t understand what it was like to still remember.

“I plan to stick around,” Bela said. She finally stopped pacing and came to sit at the edge of the bed. “Nothing you say will frighten me. I did spend some time in Hell.”

They hadn’t spoken about that yet, always sidestepping the issue and Ruby spending too much time waiting for Lilith to show up. Now she’d been here and there was nothing left to wait for, at least until the morning when she would have to go and see Sam again.

“Did anything happen?” Ruby asked.

Bela looked down. “No, not really. I was .trapped. Held up by hooks or something, but there was nobody else around. At least until you…” She looked back up. “I never thanked you for saving me.”

I didn’t save you. “No problem. It’s nice to have someone around when you’re topside.”

It sure beat the year of walking around, waiting to catch up with Sam. The main problem with that had been courage; sucking in enough energy and evil to start breaking him apart, watching how he was with Dean and promising to give Sam everything he ever wanted. Which, when it came down to it, was just a brother who wouldn’t die.

Bela caught her eye. “How many times have you been here?”

“Twice. Once with Sam and once.” Ruby hesitated. “Once before.”

There was no more follow up from Bela, but Ruby heard the unspoken when?. Ruby had a when of her own -- when had this conversation switched from Bela being Hell to Ruby being free? Still, Ruby felt as though she should answer. Bela already knew the master plan and Lilith hadn’t appeared to blast her away.

“I was a witch,” she said.

“I’ve known a few of them in my time.” More ambivalent Bela, and Ruby was really beginning to enjoy that. “Scorned more than a few. You do have some of the nicest talismans.”

“Was a witch,” Ruby insisted. It had been for six years, and from the moment she renounced the title, the death-promise looming over her head didn’t seem nearly so appealing as it had the day she sold her soul. Stupid regrets of a nineteen year old rebel and now she was still paying the price almost seven centuries later. “Now I’m just a demon.”

“Just a demon?” Bela asked. “I’m not anything out here.”

“You’re in limbo,” Ruby said, though she’d never heard of such a thing. “Why did you go to Hell?”

“Same reason as everyone.”

She shouldn’t have asked. She’d heard many stories from many demons, some she believed had their reasons and others -- like her -- who she knew lived in a constant world of regret. Now they had eternity to pay, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t known the rules when they sealed that contract with a kiss. Ruby’s first taste of demon mouth had been from Lilith.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ruby said. “Whatever you did.”

There was the screech of a chair being pushed backward before toppling over and Bela stood over her. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You sold your soul.” Ruby bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood. Blood she’d be feeding Sam. Blood she should be feeding Sam. Ruby kicked out her own chair and gave one last look at Bela. “I believe you didn’t do anything.”

It sounded like the flimsiest excuse in existence, but she did mean it.

::

Drunk. That was the only word she could use to describe Sam now. Drunk on alcohol, on grief, on the mix of sleeping pills he would steal while the pharmacist turned their head. She knew all of this because she watched him, learnt all his patterns and traits. Ruby was good at watching people. Lilith had always praised her for that.

“Sam,” she said gently, though she doesn’t know how he managed to believe her. Maybe he didn’t. “I know you want to save Dean.”

His eyes glazed over when she said the name. He didn’t yell anymore, he just shut down. She could work with that a whole lot better.

“We can still use your powers.” She walked over to where he leaned against the broken, battered table. “I know you still have them.”

“Can’t use them.” He didn’t meet her eye, never did.

“Because you promised Dean?” She slid her hand closer to his and he didn’t pull back anymore. She could brush her knuckles over his fingers, his hands. They were bruised in purple and cut in red. Punching things, hunting things. He would never give up. “Or because you’ve lost them?”

He didn’t answer, but she already knew it was a mix of both. Promises to big brother and living life in a drunken stupor.

“I can help you,” she said. “I can help you free Dean.”

“You already promised that!” He was yelling again, hand striking out to bring a glass bottle smashing to the ground. She didn’t move. “You told me you could save him then you didn’t!”

“I can’t.” She kept her voice calm. “You, Sam -- with your powers you could walk right into Hell and pluck out any soul you wanted.” She looked up at him and had to hide her grin when he finally caught her eye. Gotcha. “All you have to do is trust me.”

Dark, bitter laughter floated through the room. “Trust you? I can barely look at you.”

“Then don’t look.” She grasped his wrists and pressed his hands to her hips, casting her eyes down so he wouldn’t have to see. “Just do.”

::

There was a knock at the hotel room door -- the third room, they kept moving around the same town so Ruby could stay close to Sam -- and Ruby met Bela’s eye. She shrugged and went to open it. They had asked for no maids, but experience told Ruby nobody really listened to your requests.

“Ruby!”

The voice might not be recognisable, but a glance at the face is. “Lilith.”

“Of course.” She had a huge grin on her face and practically bounced where she stood, blonde curls flying. Lilith was the only demon who managed to continually freak Ruby out. Like a perpetual child, caught with the job of a knight. “You did it!”

She did it. Sliced up the skin of this body and forced it down Sam’s lips. And it felt good. Sickness and disgust rolled around in her stomach but she couldn’t deny how good it felt. To know she was doing this for Lilith. She was a demon. Ruby the demon, not Ruby the human witch from the 14th century.

“Hi Bela!” Lilith pushed past Ruby and into the room.

Bela jumped to her feet. Ruby wasn’t sure if she could see Lilith’s true face -- she never commented on Ruby’s -- but her reaction here seemed to speak yes and Ruby hurried over to stand between them. She knew only too well what could happen if one pissed Lilith off too much.

“Sam,” Ruby said, trying to steer the conversation back. She didn’t want Bela to know anything else. Even if she’d said otherwise, Ruby knew there was only so much a human -- or near human at least -- could be expected to take. Not that she needed Bela around, of course. Not really.

“Yes, Sam.” Lilith’s grin somehow grew wider as she whipped around to face Ruby. “I knew you could do it, Ruby. Lucifer will reward you in ways you can’t even imagine.”

She kept saying that, but so far the only reward Ruby had listened to her talk about was the world growing dark and being ruled by demons. It didn’t sound all that impressive. If she wanted that, she could just go back down to Hell.

“This is Lilith?” Bela asked. “You look different.”

Lilith gave a twirl, white dress that vaguely resembled something a bride would wear fanning out. “Isn’t this a lovely meatsuit? Her name is Lillia. Fitting, don’t you think?”

“Is she alive?”

Ruby cringed at Bela’s question and her hand wavered to her waistband. A sinking feeling hit her as her hand swiped across the leather knife; there was no way Lilith hadn’t seen.

“Of course,” Lilith said and her voice was still bright, lithe. “She’s really too beautiful to dispose of.”

Silence stretched through the room and Ruby caught Bela’s eye. Don’t she tried to show through her wjp;e body and mind. Don’t push Lilith, just don’t. Ruby didn’t know if Bela had any type of powers but that was probably something she should look into immediately. If only to utilise them if Sam starts to become suspicious.

“Well.” Lilith stepped closer to Ruby. “I have some other business to attend to. You keep doing what you’re doing, splitting those seals.”

With a soft kiss to Ruby’s lips she was gone, evaporating into the air.

“You and Lilith?” Bela asked and Ruby couldn’t read her, not one speck of emotion.

“No.” Ruby shook her head, too quickly. “Lilith’s just…”

Before Ruby was forced to explain the whole story and spill her guts in front of a woman she really shouldn’t have anything to do with, her cell range. She pulled it from her pocket, saw it was from Sam, and had to answer.

“Hey. Sam?”

“Ruby.” Of course there was no greeting. “I found some.”

Demons. The last thing she had asked Sam to do before she left. Find them, tell her, try out the powers. Until he could kill Lilith, until he could free Lucifer.

“Yeah? Where are you?”

He rattled off an address, an abandoned warehouse just outside of where they were staying in Pontiac. Two of them, he said, tied up and waiting.

“Wait there,” she told him.

She snapped shut her phone and looked back at Bela.

“You’re going to have him kill demons?” Bela asked.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that a little counter-productive? Killing off your kind?”

Ruby’s mouth twitched and that anger she’d tried to keep down surged up, just a little. “I’m training him.”

“Do you enjoy doing that?” Bela watched her evenly, face still a smooth slate of emotionless stone. She might not have been a demon exactly, but she already had a lot of the traits ingrained. It wouldn’t have taken her long down there to change, to warp into something beyond recognition. It wasn’t fair.

“What did you do?” Ruby asked quietly.

“What?”

“To go to Hell,” Ruby said. “What did you do?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does!” A nearby lamp fell to the ground, shade tearing and bulb shattering. Bela jumped.

“Why do you care?” The slate was gone and Bela’s eyes were afraid. It was an emotion Ruby knew only too well, because it was one of the very few emotions Hell allowed you to grasp onto. It was better to feel something than nothing at all.

“You’ve stayed with me this long.” Ruby’s voice was calmer. Nothing else fell. “I’ve told you a plan I shouldn’t tell anyone. Give me something.”

More fear clouded over Bela and that small part of Ruby that still felt wanted to take back the words and say it didn’t matter. It didn’t, not in the scheme of things. Bela didn’t owe her anything.

“I had lovely parents,” Bela said before Ruby could make the moral part of herself kickstart. “Very wealthy and I had the best of everything.”

At first, Ruby thought she had seriously misconstrued the part about Bela being at no fault, but then Bela kept speaking.

“My father gained his entire fame by being a selfish bastard. He took whatever he believed to be rightfully his.” As Ruby continued to watch and wait for Bela to keep going, she saw the wall come back up. Bela’s face was smooth again. “That included me. In any way he wanted.” She gave a sharp burst of laughter. “I just got back what I deserved and ten wonderful years of it.”

Ruby doesn’t know what to say, and she can’t bring herself to look away. Eventually her tongue works on an, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.” Bela smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Now, I believe I asked you a question. Do you enjoy doing what Lilith has asked of you?”

Ruby said, “No,” before she knew what she was doing.

“You’re not like them, are you?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. Most of Ruby still wanted to prove herself to Lilith but a smaller, more incessant part was just so tired. “I wish I had choices.”

“I’d like to go to Queens,” Bela said. Ruby raised her shoulders, confused. “That’s a choice, you can come with me. If I’m planning to stay back here for a while I would like to retain some of what I own. Nomadic lifestyles were always more of a Winchester thing.”

Lilith would find out. Lilith would track them down. Lilith would torture and slaughter them, rip the meat from their bones.

“Yeah,” Ruby said anyway. “We should.”

::

“I could buy you a car,” Bela said. Ruby glanced over at her, barely visible in the dark of late evening. “Instead of stealing. I have enough money for any type you’d like. My personal preference being Mercedes.”

“Don’t you get your money through stealing?”

Bela grinned and the wind from the open car window whipped at her hair. “I steal from sociopathic hunters, not honest working businessmen.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m sure the multi-billion dollar company CEOs cry themselves to sleep at night.”

Most of Bela’s laughter was pulled away by the wind, but it was still there, filling the car and making Ruby laugh along with her, at least a little bit. In the back of her mind was constant thoughts about Lilith and even some about Sam. He couldn’t be addicted yet, could he? The plan hadn’t fully formed, he wasn’t totally reliant on her yet. It was just testing the waters, seeing how far he’d go. And this. This with Bela wasn’t going to be permanent or anything. She could go back, prove herself to Lilith.

Up in the distance, Ruby caught sight of a diner. She revved the engine and weaved through the three cars ahead. Bela yelling out “Careful!” when the blaring horns start up.

“We’re dead,” Ruby reminded her, and brought the car to a sharp halt in the diner parking lot.

“Dead,” Bela said, as though it was the first time she’d realised that very basic fact. They crossed the parking lot, and Bela’s nose scrunched up. Ruby never had taken her as the diner type.

“I love french fries,” Ruby said as they walked in.

Inside the diner, amongst the clattering of dishes and chatting of patrons, the A/C blasted over Ruby’s skin. It hit her that she never had found out exactly where Lilith had sent her, and the shiver she gave wasn’t just from the cold air.

“What can I get the two of you?” The waitress asked. She swiped her dark red nails over a pad of paper and pulled out a pen.

They ordered a huge platter of fries which raised the neatly eyebrows of the waitress sky high, but she hurried off after Ruby also added a bowl of ketchup to her request. Oil-soaked diner fries where the next best thing to crack. The waitress returned surprisingly quickly, dumping the plate and scurrying off.

“You never told me about your first time back here.”

Ruby swallowed down a mouthful of salt and potato, but it lodged in her throat. She took a sip of soda and looked out the window trying to decide. It shouldn’t be so hard to talk about this, not when she’d already shared everything that actually mattered.

She looked back at Bela. “I told you I was a witch.”

Bela nodded and took a fry herself, dipping it carefully into the bowl of ketchup.

“And that’s why I sold my soul.”

Another nod and she bit down on her fry.

“It was to a demon named Astaroth. After I received my...torture...” A spark of Alastair flashed through her mind. Him holding his knife, him cutting into her skin. “She came and found me in Hell, attempted to teach me everything she knew. Then I fucked up. Went against her and, of course, she decided to punish me.”

“What did you do?” Bela asked quietly.

“Just didn’t listen to what she wanted me to do.” Like with Lilith, only she wouldn’t make that same mistake again. Only she was. “But she sent me up here, during 1692, and dropped me in Salem.”

“Witch.”

With the way Bela said it, Ruby doesn’t think the word was meant for her. She nodded anyway. “I got to burn at the stake and, let me tell you, fire really does hurt demons. The drowning isn’t so bad, though.” She knew the smile she gave was dark, and was downright surprised when her eyes didn’t change to reflect it. “I don’t want to be bad.” The words were out before she could even consider stopping them, so fast and strong she almost clasped a hand to her mouth. Lilith could hear, she could know. Then there here was only one way this could end. Bloody.

Bela was smiling softly. “I don’t think you’re bad.”

“You’re wrong.” Totally, completely, utterly wrong. Ruby had agreed to Lilith and wasn’t regretting it, at least not all the way; she had forced Sam to drink her blood; she’d sold her soul in the first place.

“How many hours do we have left to drive?” Bela asked.

“What? Um very early tomorrow morning I think.” Time was much easier when you could appirate wherever you wanted to be within a moment’s notice. Yet another thing that made Bela human; the inability to do just that.

“About seven hours? Eight?”

“With my driving, about five.” Ruby tried to smile, really, but the image of stakes burning and women screaming still managed to distract her. She wondered, briefly, if Lilith was putting the images there. Ruby wouldn’t put it past her to already know.

“Then you have five hours to decide if you want to be good.” Bela was still smiling and picked up another of the french fries. “Then you can decide if you’re ready to hide again. I do have some excellent apartments over the world.”

“But Lilith…” Saying the name was stupid, risky. If Lilith hadn’t been following her now she’d definitely heard her name be called.

“I know a lot of hunters. We could probably be safe, at least for a while.” Bela reached across, laid her hand on Ruby’s wrist. She felt warm. Not boiling hot and not freezing cold, she just reminded Ruby of the Earth. “It’s up to you.”

When Ruby stared harder out the diner window, she thought she could catch sight of a wisp of white. She wouldn’t put it past Lilith to be right there, to be waiting. Fine. Let her wait.

“Yeah.” Ruby turned back to Bela. “Let’s do it."

 


End file.
